Frontier

Nonstop service to Providence, Rhode Island, is scheduled to begin at Punta Gorda Airport in September.

The year-round flights will operate twice weekly and begin on Sept. 28. This new service will bring Allegiant Air’s Punta Gorda-based routes to 34 cities. Fares will start as low as $38.

Providence, Allegiant’s newest destination, also will have nonstop routes to St. Petersburg and Cincinnati under the expansion.

Punta Gorda Airport has grown hand-over-fist since it brought on commercial airline service roughly a decade ago. The airport welcomed 1 million passengers for the first time last year, and the terminal recently underwent a 45,000-square-foot expansion that boosted the 16,000-square-foot space to roughly the size of a football field.

The airport has found its niche with ultra low-cost carriers. Players like Allegiant operate on a no-frills model that allows passengers to fly for minimal costs but bills them for extras such as printing tickets and bringing carry-on bags.

In November, Allegiant’s major competitor, Frontier, launched routes from Punta Gorda, adding a second commercial carrier to the Charlotte County airport.

Last month, the airport celebrated 42 consecutive months of increasing passenger traffic: 120,764 passengers in April, up more than 23 percent from the previous year.

PUNTA GORDA — Frontier Airlines’ new flights into Punta Gorda cut travel time to the airport in half for Tony and Beryl Rotunno.

The new nonstop service to Philadelphia, Chicago O’Hare and Trenton, New Jersey, is rolling out this week and adding a second low-cost carrier to the Allegiant Air-dominated Punta Gorda Airport. The Rotunnos, a New Jersey-based couple, bought a second home in Port Charlotte two years ago and have been flying into Tampa International Airport or Southwest Florida International Airport in Fort Myers about once a month ever since.

The airfare, typically, determines how they fly, Tony Rotuno said, but if the fares are comparable, the flights between Trenton and Punta Gorda shortens the hour or two-hour hike to the airport to about 30 minutes.

“This is very convenient,” Rotunno said. “I think it’s great that Allegiant now has competition for this airport.”

Punta Gorda Airport, which didn’t even have commercial service a decade ago, has boomed in recent years with more than 30 percent annual growth. James Parish, the airport’s president and CEO, welcomed more than a million passengers for the first time. Punta Gorda Airport, which just underwent a 45,000-square-foot expansion, has plenty of room to grow, too. Today, the space is only operating at 75 percent capacity.

This could just be the beginning for Frontier in Charlotte County, said Darrin Hughes, regional manager for Frontier.

“I would anticipate growth here,” Hughes said. “There’s plenty of room for us to grow, and other carriers to grow because this airport has staged itself to grow.”

But some passengers, who had traditionally flown from Trenton into Fort Myers on Frontier, were frustrated on Monday that the route had been moved to Punta Gorda. While the new flight helps passengers such as the Rutonnos, it increases the travel time for Trenton Frontier passengers from the Naples area. But in turn, it gives the ultra low-cost carrier additional access to the Sarasota travelers.

“The (market) area for this airport is almost identical to Fort Myers with the exception that this airport is a little further north,” Hughes said. “We can now serve the Sarasota area in addition to the Lee and Charlotte county areas.”

Punta Gorda Airport and its no-frills operation model typically appeals to ultra low-cost carriers, Parish said. His airport lacks the food courts, services and fine dining restaurants associated with major airports, but the carriers only pay a $65 fuel hookup fee to land a plane at the regional airport. That’s a bargain for players like Allegiant and Frontier that typically fly passengers for less than $100 one way.

Parish said the airport recently attracted some attention from Delta Airlines at a convention. But it took five years to seal the deal with Frontier, and the airport CEO does not expect to add a major carrier to the Punta Gorda market anytime soon.

Rather, Parish is hoping the new partnership with Frontier could bring a much-coveted western route into the airport.

Today passengers can only fly as far west as Kansas City, Missouri.

“If everything goes well, we hope Frontier will put more flights in here to other destinations, hopefully getting out west a little bit,” Parish said. “Allegiant is continuing to grow, and they should be announcing a few more cities in late November or early December, we hope, and hopefully Frontier will announce more service to their existing cities or new service.”